Exercising Environmental Rights entails making legal services available to communities and civil society organisations to support the assertion of environmental rights in prioritised cases, including high quality legal advice on rights and remedies available in terms of environmental law; the pre-litigious assertion of rights, negotiation and dispute resolution; effective and streamlined reporting of non-compliance to competent authorities; and institution of legal proceedings on behalf of clients, as public interest litigant and as friend of the court.

Environmental Law Information Hub is a knowledge management, information distribution and training programme focused on collating and making available environmental legal information and resources. Features of this programme include a Virtual Environmental Law Library, made available to civil society through www.cer.org.za (the website you are looking at).

Capacity-Building: The Centre prioritises training and capacity-building within the NGO sector through collaboration and knowledge sharing, environmental rights training, community learning sessions, workshops, reference groups and more, in partnerships with NGO stakeholders, professional associations, local universities and international institutions.

Section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996

Everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being; and to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; and secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.